Millions for bush crafting but not one cent for the kitchen

dogwood dan

dogwood dan

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Aug 19, 2011
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Millions for bushcrafting but not one cent for the kitchen
I am going to start this off with some honesty. I am a kitchen guy. Blame Ethan Becker for this, I do. If I am going to be honest, I have to say I was a kitchen guy, long before I was a knife guy. There is some back story so bear with me as that I am getting paid by the word. My oldest came in to this world too soon and sickly when we were able to bring him home someone was going to have to stay with him. At the time I was a full time student and my wife traveled a lot with work. I was faced with the easiest important decision I ever made. I dropped out of school, watched “Mr. Mom’ one more time, and reported for duty, and yes, the pun was intended. It was not long before I realized that though demanding, the stay at home gig was not going to overly tax my admittedly limited mental abilities. With a kid who slept a lot and the realization that my fine dining days were on indefinite hold, I pulled down the Joy of Cooking and opened it to page 1. Well really it was more like page 36 or something as there are a lot of introductions and tables and stuff. Anyway, that was the first expensive passion that Mr. Becker led me into. I am not kidding, go look it up. I will wait, his name is right there on the cover and everything.
I came to knife making wanting to make kitchen knives, but the only person that I could apprentice with made bushcrafting knives so I made bushcrafting knives. I am now a knife maker on my own and have never forgotten about the kitchen. As I have learned to appreciate I good knife and what a valuable tool one is, I have seen a troubling disconnect.
Before I go any further I want to do a little experiment. I want you to close your eyes.........ah you figured out you cannot close your eyes and finish this article. So I want you to take a moment and think about your holy grail of bush knives, no wait just think about a very nice knife. Think about what traits make it a good knife and think about why these traits are important and why you are willing to pay a premium for these traits. Now think about the last time you used that knife. Last week?, work has been hell, has it been a few weeks or a month since you took your bush buddy out? Now go back to your mental image of a really good bush knife. Picture yourself holding that knife in your hand. Now, add a guy standing next to you to that picture and he is holding a buck knife knock off from China. While you hold that image in your mind, I want you to walk in to your kitchen and look at your butchers block or god forbid the “Knife drawer”. Go on, I will wait this is important.........
Now honestly which guy are you?
(I thought about ending there or we could take it a little further)
Are you the guy using poorly made, poorly designed mass produced blade to do a very important task over and over everyday? Not whenever you can get away, but everytime you make a meal!?
All the same traits that are important in a good bush knife are important in a kitchen knife. Even more so because unless you are Robinson Caruso, you use the kitchen knives in orders of magnitude more than a bush knife. I was shocked when I noticed that I was falling into this logic break, and it is part of what reminded me that I wanted to make kitchen knives.
Knives should not be about fads. Knives should be about work. They are tools, beautiful tools that raise tools to the level of art, but tools all the same. Why would someone invest in a high quality tool that he uses only sometimes and ignore the tool he uses most?
 
That's a good question.

I think the issue with kitchen knives is they're shared and open for all. My wife could chop up some onions on a glass board or a visitor could pop open a beer cap with the spine, and let's not forget the dishwasher and the way stuff winds up in there.

Our kitchen knives are a workman like set I can keep sharp with minimal effort and no grey hairs from seeing them misused.

Maybe when the kids move out I'll have one or two nicer ones for just me.
 
I have to admit I have "my kitchen knives" and it took a lot of training and trowing out of cutting boards before my wife used them. There is a multiple choices and essay test as well as a probationary period before guest are allowed to use them. The "party knives" are in a draw (with dividers) that come out when we are going to have a crowd over. I just hated coming in from the woods and then using a poorly made knife.
 
Good thread and something I think about often. I have a set of Globals and the Esee/Beckers. Performance wise I have found the Globals to be a little underwhelming and I like the Beckers more.

I think one of the reasons for the phenomenon you've identified is the price/quality disconnect in kitchen knives; often less expensive knives use the same steel as the mid-higher end (1.4116 etc) and seem to perform as well. Of course that doesn't explain why we don't go custom.

The other reason I suspect we put more into the bushcraft knives we use less often is that some of us are really buying a dream that we can one day escape the shackles of the daily grind, get out into the bush and leave the rat race behind on a more regular basis :)
 
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Maybe that's why I like my new knife so much, I've been using it in the kitchen every day. Of course, I dream about taking it camping, but that hasn't happened for a while. It's a Spyderco Manix 2 Lightweight, and the "leaf shaped" blade works for me just like a small French chef's knife.

You are right though, kitchen knives deserve more respect. We use them ten times as often as our treasured collector's items.
 
Dan makes some beautiful kitchen knives I been eye balling a stablized pinecone filet knife for awhile some who has the funds should buy one I bet they wouldn't regret it!
 
I understand your frustration. We have started promoting some kitchen knives and custom cutting boards and realized we are getting no where. The problem is we are in a knife forum and talking to knife people. When you go to the right Culinary forums and get into conversations, the tone completely changes. At home chefs and master culinary experts take their kitchen knives very seriously and are willing to pay big bucks for the right tools. We have discovered, as I assume you are, that diving in to the Kitchen knife/tool world is a big and difficult transition!
 
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